From Christian Brothers' Necrology
By
J. P. Murray

JOHN HERRICK was born on New Year's Day 1899 and his home address is given as Shandangan, Killinardrish, Co. Cork. He received his early education at Canovee National School and joined the Christian Brothers on 23 September 1922. When he was clothed with the religious habit on the feast of St Joseph in 1923 he was given the religious name of Oswald. Late in 1924 he came to India where the records of the Indian province indicate that his first mission was to the Catholic Male Orphanage, the C.M.O., in January 1925. Thereafter followed a series of annual changes. Oswald underwent five transfers between the end of 1925 and the occasion of his final profession at St Mary's, Mount Abu, on Christmas Day 1930. His was evidently a roving commission.

In point of fact, the few years in Abu, from early 1930 until January 1933, constituted the longest stretch of consecutive years that Oswald spent in any of the houses of the Indian province. his record of transfers is of unusual length and, as one of our 'senior citizens' expressed it, 'He certainly had a rough passage!' Kurjee, Bow Bazar, Naini Tal, Shillong, Kurseong, the record of his comings and goings stretches across the years, and now his journeying have taken him away beyond the sunset .
May he rest in peace.

We had long realized that Oswald was subject to onsets indicative of psychiatric disorder, with bouts of sharp intensity coming at odd intervals, and that in an age when remedies for one so afflicted were still at a primitive stage of development. So Oswald was allowed the liberty to linger on, at times operating at a level of full awareness, at other times at large in a world of his own dreaming. So, here and there in India, Oswald managed along somehow, until that day in March 1945, when, as the record shows, he 'left for Ireland.' He died there twenty-six years later.

It was the summer of 1946 when the Brother we identified as 'the Indian' came striding purposefully into the study hail of St Joseph's College, Ledsham, where I was one among the rest that sunny July evening, long ago. Br Prosper O'Reilly, who died later in Argentina, had vacated the supervisor's rostrum, and had left the hall for what we believed would be a brief period, and 'the Indian' promptly occupied the chair. We paid him scant attention, thinking that he was merely helping out with the supervision, until: "East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet" shattered the stillness and caused us to glance upwards in blinking startlernent. 'The Indian' was declaiming, sharp eyes, thinning hair and with resonant voice resounding.

He worked his way down through a verse or two, then he planted his arms firmly upon the desk top and proceeded to pronounce, for the space of the succeeding sixty minutes one of the most enlightened analyses of British Rule in India to which I have ever been treated. He started off with Clive and carried on to explore the Indian situation down the years following the first siege of Calcutta. He was particularly vivid dealing with the Mutiny' and the greased cartridges and he gripped our ears "and held them fast like a spell'' as he established the link between the National Movement in Ireland and Mahatma Gandhi's Freedom Movement in India. So well did he acquit himself that, when eventually he did run out of words, we treated him to a standing ovation. We had been listening to Oswald Herrick.

Now follow notes of appreciation of Oswald from three still-active members of our Indian Province.
Fintan O'Farrell writes: "It was in Naini Tai that I first came to know Oswald. He had come to the house of studies in Arranmore in 1934 to teach twelve of us young Brothers who were preparing for the Senior Cambridge Examination while our superior, Baptist Collins, was making visitation in St Mary's, Mount Abu. Oswald was an excellent teacher when he was in the mood for work and he put new life into the classroom. This would go on for four or five days and then suddenly he would be down with some illness, real or imaginary, and he would take to his room for the rest of the week. On the long hikes to Bhowali and Bhimtal he would entertain us with recitations of 'The Town Pump', 'The Deserted Village' and other narrative poems. When Baptist returned after a fortnight, Oswald returned to St Joseph's."

Bernard Vieyra writes: "Oswald was a person with a keen mind and a very good memory; he would recite 'The Town Pump' or extracts from Shakespeare or Goldsmith with great gusto at those gaudeamuses which were so much a part of our community life. Hhe was a kind person and I imagine he would lead a class of reluctant boys with his exuberance and his own love of knowledge; there was no harshness about him.

"He came to our novitiate, Mount Carmel, above Goethals Memorial School in Kurseong, during January 1938 to coach a group of postulants and young brothers who were preparing for the Matriculation Examination. The novice master had gone away for a short holiday, so Brother Oswald took over and the whole group moved out into the sunshine, books, desks and blackboards and whatever else was needed. It was hard work after that, going from subject to subject, softening hard points, clearing doubts, with everyone concentrating. I am sure those young men learnt more in that one month than they had in the last six. The main point is that he was so genial, considerate and engaging, with never a rude or sarcastic word. If the day was misty, the work was done inside; no let-up at all. One afternoon it snowed heavily - not usual at all. In came Brother Oswald with his usual dash: 'Out! Out! ' he said aloud, 'Out! The freedom of the children of God; Out!' I do not think the young men understood much about the 'freedom' but they understood 'Out!' so out they rushed and spent the rest of the day in the sunshine and the snow; it was very beautiful for us because it was so very unusual. The results of the examination were excellent. We did not know at the time that he was a very highly strung person and that he was beginning to become mentally unsettled. I-low could we? I-Ic was an adept at chess and draughts.

"He gradually turned worse; he came down in 1941 to St Joseph's, Calcutta, and his behaviour was very strange; he seemed to think that someone was after him. He would come to a door, stop, look this way and that, dash across the corridor to the opposite door, look in carefully, look back and then dash into the room. If you came across him in such a situation, he would stop and smile, silent, and his eyes very bright. Then a rumour would filter down to us younger men that Oswald had disappeared; 'Where?' 'When?' No answers. Some person would phone the superior that Oswald was with some friend of his. He would be brought back, rather untidy. It was during the War and there was no prospect of sending him home. The provincial, J.B.Culhane, surely had some embarrassing situations to face. He would write to the consultor, J.B.Connolly, in Naini Tal, stating, 'X is missing' or X has been found.' The Government sent men to find out who X was and why he was called X and what all the secrecy was about. Maybe, the British thought that some Irishmen were out to give trouble!

"As soon as was possible, Oswald returned home. I believe he was in and out of a mental home and also that in his saner moments he was helpful in keeping accounts or in doing office work. He would certainly be very willing to help."

From Bosco Aykaramattam: ''On 9 July 1939 I met Oswald Herrick for the first time when I entered Mount Carmel as ~. Postulant. He was then laid up with 'flu and on that occasion we had only a few words. Three days later he was up and joined the community. That day being a Thursday, we had some free time and, with the permission of the novice master, Oswald talked to me for half an hour walking on the path by the grotto. He asked me numerous questions about the south of India, particuiarly of the people in Travancore and Cochin States. Finally he asked me straight, 'Are you devoted to Our Lady?' I answered, 'Yes, I am.' I told him that from my First Communion when I was seven I had been a sodalist. Very good. You will do all right, no fear', he answered as we came back to the house.

"As socius he had little to do with me, the only postulant, and my companion, the only novice. We saw him in the chapel, in the refectory and at night recreation at the bridge table where the novice master presided. Oswald took charge of us on walk evenings and he kept the route away from Goethals and St Mary's College (Jesuit Seminary). The walks had a definite programme. We assembled in front of the grotto and after a short silent prayer he gave us recreation. His talks on the walks were most interesting for me. He talked of the places where the brothers had schools in India, beginning from the west, Mt Abu, Simla, Naini Tal, Kurji, Asansol to Calcutta and finished with Shiiicng. I hadn't even heard of most of them and his talks made them real and not far-off places.

"During the rains, if we had a sunny day, we had work outside, cutting down condemned trees marked by the forest guard for firewood, or we leveled and paved paths and the drains beside them. Then invariably Oswald and his student Brother Robertson would join us. On most of these occasions we had recreation and the novice master worked along with us as our 'engineer'.

"On one such occasion trying to lift one end of a heavy log Oswald suffered a rupture, resulting in a very painful hernia. After resting in bed with hot water bottles and taking pain killers for a few days, he was sent to a Darjeeling hospital where he had an operation. He was slow to recover.
"He returned after a month but was forbidden long Walks over the hills. Before Christmas the novice master, Luke Aherne. with his novice and postulant, made the 8 day retreat in Carrnel while Oswald made his with the Goethals community. On 21 December, the day after the end of our retreat, I received the habit and no outsiders were there. Early next morning Oswald took the short cut to Carmel to congratulate me and to call me by my new name.

"Brother Luke was not pleased to see him climbing up and asked if he had forgotten that he was forbidden to climb. 'Sorry, Brother Novice Master,' answered Oswald, 'I couldn't resist coming up to meet your new novice. This evening our retreat will be over but tomorrow would be too late as he would have become a day-old novice.'

'Oswald was transferred to Goethals in the following year and the only occasion we met and shared a few words, in the presence of the novice master, was at the funeral of Brother Ambrose Flynn, the last of the pioneers of 1 890.
''It was in July 1941 that I met Oswald again when I joined the community in St Joseph's. Calcutta, as a student. Here Oswald was a wonderful teacher and his class almost adored him. The only thing I noticed about him was that he would be absent for several days from the community and the remark of one of the older brothers at the table was. Oswald is on his jaunt again.'
''I heard from the brothers that he had become peculiar since his near-tragic accident in St Michael's, Patna. On top of that he felt he was being discriminated against because when his turn came to go home in 1939, Brother Collins was sent instead. At this time he was more than nine years away from home and was anxious to go home while his close relative, Doctor Coholan, was still Bishop of Cork.
"He pondered over this until it became an obsession with him, that the higher-ups were all against him and he began to act irresponsibly. It must be said' to his credit that when he was on his 'jaunts' he always went to some priests he knew and never to the houses of seculars and always in his religious habit.
''It was with great difficulty that a passage home was booked for him in 1945. He had to sail round Ceylon and the Cape, dodging Japanese U-boats and German torpedoes. his unceasing prayer to Our Lady saw him home safely.

"As a monk he was devout and prayerful. In Mt Carmel he spent a lot of his free time in chapel or at the grotto counting his beads. In community he was friendly and helpful and generous with his time and talents solving math's problems, explaining knotty Latin constructions or difficult passages from Shakespeare. Milton or Mathew Arnold. You had to catch him in the right mood and he would be at your service, He never gave anyone any trouble, except the superior, who often had to make several calls to locate him.

"As a teacher he was A 1. He had a wonderful memory and he obtained all the texts for the next year's classes during Christmas and had them studied and learnt by heart before the new classes began. Many a time at gaudies Oswald would entertain the monks with his recitations.
'I wouldn't be surprised if he is now' looking down from heaven at me trying to write about him of whose background, difficulties and trials I know so little.

'Oswald died in St John of God's Nursing Home. Dublin, on 21 July 1971. May he rest in peace.